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Sallia
Phonology Sallia uses an alphabet of 17 letters: A a B b K k D d E ɛ F f H h I ɪ L l M m N n O o P p R r S s T t U ʊ. Overall, the letters sound the way you would expect them to be, regardless of their placement. When it is not stressed, the letter "i" tends to form diphthongs aɪ, eɪ, oɪ and uɪ, as well as ɪa, ɪe, ɪo and ɪu when it comes in contact with another vowel. Other vowels are pronounced separately from each other. Phonotactics The Sallia syllable structure is described by the ©V©© pattern. Out of all consonants, only L, M, N, R, S and T can be syllable-final. Stress The stress usually falls on the last syllable of the root. For example suobó river deahúodéni (deahu + o + de + ni) on the top of the tower tía (ti +'' a'') arrives méniot ''(''men + i'' + ''ot) about people men tíasi (ti + a'' + ''si) if he comes Basic Grammar Sallia is an agglutinating language. It has a lot of cases and compound words. Verbs Sallia verbs and adjectives always have the final '-a' (sometimes substituted by -l, see below): Nunamen dun'a'' - The boy plays. Punase deateti'a'' - The tree grows. Nunaei dunsedan'a'' - The children laugh. Aspects The verbs do not change according to tense, but can be put in three different aspects: prospective, imperfective and perfective. The perfective aspect is marked by -s', which is attached to the -a ending. Similarly, the prospective aspect is marked by '-at'. Thus, ''Miadasobo tia - The train comes/The train arrives Miadasobo tia's'' - The train has arrived Miadasobo tia't'' - The train is going to arrive Passive Voice Verbs can be put inot passive voice by adding the suffix -er. E.g. Me sia miadasobou - I see the train Miadasobo siera mede - The train is seen by me. Negative To negate a verb, the prefix s- (se- before vowels and "s") is used: Me smiat -- I am not going Me deu skia siate -- I can't see you. Moods There are four moods in Sallia, indicative, subjunctive, conditional and imperative. While the indicative mood has all three aspects, the other moods has only one aspect each. The subjunctive describes an action (imaginary or in the past) that could have occured but did not. It is indicated by verb ending '-ans'. It is often followed by a noun or gerund in the Causal case: Me mians de tiatehiase meu -- I would have come if you called me. The conditinal mood describes an action that may or may not occur in the future, depending on the circumstances. It is indicated by verb ending '-ant'. It is usually followed by a noun or gerund in the Conditional case: Me miant de tiatehiasi meu -- I'll come if you call me. The imperative mood's conicides by ending with the prospective aspect, but a verb in the imperative takes no subject. Thus, De miat -- You'll go Miat! -- Go! Rules for adding suffixes and endings When a suffix or and ending is added to a Sallia root that ends with a vowel, special rules may apply. The reason for it is that such roots used to end with the letter -l- that is dropped in modern speech but makes a reappearance in certian situations. Namely, when the root ends with a vowel, and the suffix/ending starts with the same vowel, the second vowel is dropped and replaced by -l. For example: ti ''+ ''a --> tia (no change) pa + a'' --> ''pal (final -a is dropped and replaced by -l) Nouns Sallia nouns can be put in many different cases by adding different endings to the root word. Nominative/Absolutive (with passive verbs) - (zero ending) Accusative -u Ergative ("by", with passive) -de Genitive/Posessive ("of") -o Instrumental/Instructive ("with"/"using", "by") -ul Dative ("to") -ti Benefactive ("for", also indicates purpose) -te Causal ("because of") -se Conditional ("if") -si Comitative ("with") -uli Abessive ("without") -umi Semblative ("like", "as") -sen Comparative ("than") -res Equative/Essive ("same as") -le Partitive ("of" with amounts) -lo Topical/Oblique ("about"/"with respect to") -ot Allative ("to") -nit Locative ("in") -ni Ablative ("from") -nis Perlative ("through") -nist The four cases that deal with location can also be used to indicate time. To further specify location, nouns can be augmented with the following suffixes: inside -one top -ode front -oso bottom -oder back -osor neighborhood, place near -oke away - oker surface -oten place outside, around -oner These suffixes are placed before the case marker, and are stressed. The following suffixes transform other words into location or time indicators place of -ona time of -oto To form the plural, the suffix -i- is added after the root and before the case markers: kolhon - a bird kolhoni - birds kolhonti - to the bird kolhoniti - to the birds and so on. Adverbs Adverbs usually have no ending or end with -i when derived from a different part of speech. Typically they follow the verb they modify, but may precede it as well. Adjectives Adjectives in Sallia are verbs in disguise. They do not agree with the nouns they modify, and they can take all verb forms. Adjectives always have the -a ending. To make a superlative form of an adjective, one adds the prefix do-'' (lit. "more") to it. Prefixing an adjective with ''dor-'' has the opposite effect, e.g. ''losia -- beautiful dolosia -- more beautiful dorlosia -- less beautiful dolosia panres -- the most beautiful Use the Semblative and Comparative cases with superlatives in comparisons: losia tenosunsen -- beautiful as the sun Copula The copula ia (root i''-) is usually followed by an object in Essive case (-le). ''Ka ia meo hule - This is my house. Since Sallia adjectives are morphologically very close to verbs, no copula is required before an adjective. Deo hu losia - Your house is beautiful. Gerund A verb, with its -a ending, can be treated as a gerund. In this capacity, it can have a subject, objects and adverbs modifying it, and, at the same time, it can accept case markers and be treated as if it was a noun (nomen actionis). An adjective can be treated in the same way. Here are some examples: Sia ia kensiale - Seeing is believing Me ria de miate meuli - I want you to go with me. Me kia tiate de siateliasi misu meti - I can come if you show me the way (note two gerunds here: tiat ''"to come" = ''ti + a + t''e, and ''siateliasi ''"if show" = ''siateli + a + si) The most common use of Gerund is with a modal verb, putting the Gerund in the Benefactive case: Me ria malti -- I am hungry (lit: I want to eat) Me skia miati pat dobo -- I can't go any further The other widespread use is with ''-ni'' or ''-otoni'' (= o + to + ni "in the time of") to it: Met tias koupenani dan - She came, breathing heavily Met hals teu men sesiaotoni ''-- She took it when he was not looking Compound Words The Sallia dictionary is rich with compound words. Sometimes even the most basic words' origins can be traced to a compound, e.g. ''sulma - to drink (sul - ma, "eat water") sunoto ''- day (''suno - to, "time of light") deahu ''- tower (''dea - hu, "tall house") Sallia compound words are formed by taking a well-formed phrase and fusing it together into one word. In a compound, the main word always have to be last, so when one takes a compound word apart, he would find objects placed before verbs (sul - ma), and adjectives before nouns (dea - hu). Some of the compound words can be pretty complex, but in their formation they still follow the same pattern: miadasobo - train (mia - daso - bo, "length of moving cars") sunotenodeopin ''- east (''sunoteno - deo - pin, "side of rising sun") Some of the roots that are most frequently seen as forming compound words are: he (person): dalhe "leader", maubalhe "cook", tiateliahe "teacher", luapiohe "darling" to (time): sunoto "day",'' tiato'' "future", moatetiaoto "birthday" lon (surface): dealon "sky", taolon "writing desk", mallon "table", raolon "bed" lan (collection, gathering): ruolan "book", dinalaobollan "cleaning brush", dorolan "dust", paolan "experience" hon (animal): kolhon "bird", durabouharahon "sheep", konakanuluahon "bear" li ('let", "cause"): saltilia "teaches", lantilia "adds", tiatelia "attractive, attracts", dorpiatelia "cruel" hi ("say", "tell"): sanhia "agrees", sortihia "answers", louhia "approves", bethia "argues" and so on. Personal Pronouns Sallia personal pronouns can be summarized as follows: In the IIIrd person, men is stranslated as "he", and met as "she"; however, it is very common to use the ender-neutral he. Te is used with things ("it"). These pronouns can be put in any case; so meo means "my", mete ''means "for me", ''meuli ''means "with me" and so forth. Demonstrative Pronouns Putting words ''ka "this", kar "that" , ho "what", pan "everything", pat "something" and ne ''"nothing" in any of the noun cases yields all sorts of demonstrative pronouns: ''kani -- here kanis -- from here kal -- such kaltoni -- now karatoni -- then hosi -- why? hote -- to whom? hoti -- what for? panni -- everywhere and so on. Dictionary Example text The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak. They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other. Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him; and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then the Sun shined out warmly, and immediately the traveler took off his cloak. And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two. Duapinoko e Sunoten bethias hoahe doroaot, misomen miaotoni duafeul ranotenni. Hei sanhia danisiate heu keatoni pal misomen herate durafeu doroahesen buoheres. Duapinoko koumia ro he kiasen oi he koumiaotoni doro misomen featepena doro durafeu ranotenni; e Duapinoko diratoni daonenistira palteleu. Karatoni Sunoten dursuna e misomen hera durafeu boatoni. E Duapinoko bia salsehiate Sunoten doroau buaheres. Category:Languages